Epic Tech Runs Cars & Homes For 1000 Years Without Gas Or Charging?

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Nuclear fission  is an energy dense powerful stable and carbon-free   source of energy that provides roughly 10 percent  of our electricity but nuclear power has a big   problem it generates tons of radioactive waste  that takes hundreds of thousands of years to   Decay and that costs billions of taxpayer  dollars on management and Disposal but what   if we could turn this radioactive waste into  a battery to power our phones laptops and even   electric cars without needing to recharge them  for over 20 years sounds pretty cool right join   me as we dive into nuclear waste batteries  okay that is a terrible turn of phrase let's   talk about nuclear batteries and one of the few  companies that's actually selling them to find   out if these claims are real or if it's all just  marketing hype I'm Ricky and this is Two Bit da Vinci   nuclear batteries aren't all that new they've  been around since 1913 but they've been getting   a lot of attention in recent years being touted as  the Holy Grail of Battery Technology and as nearly   Eternal batteries that will run for 20 000 years  without noticeable loss and power considering that   most of our modern devices and all electric  vehicles rely on batteries it's easy to see   why these claims caught the attention of so many  people myself included but there's another reason   why this technology made the news recently and  it has to do with the fact that it promises to   solve the nuclear waste problem nuclear power  plants provide 10.3 percent of all the world's   total electricity generation amounting to over  2 700 tarot hours in 2020. the average household   consumes around 3 500 kilowatt hours of energy per  year so nuclear alone generates enough electricity   to approximately Power 800 million homes but  all that nuclear energy production generates   waste that has the cost of hundreds of billions  of dollars every year a possible solution would   be to reuse that waste but how enter the nuclear  waste battery so we've covered many different   kinds of Battery Technology on this channel  like all of them from lithium ion to flywheels   and even CO2 batteries I'll leave links in the  description but what are nuclear batteries in a   nutshell a nuclear battery is any battery capable  of converting the energy produced from spontaneous   nuclear Decay reactions or radioactivity into  usable electricity this is in stark contrast to   other Technologies like Lithium-ion batteries that  rely on chemical reactions the key selling point   of nuclear batteries is their energy density  using nuclear reactions instead of chemical   processes implies that nuclear batteries have  energy densities orders of magnitudes greater   than chemical batteries and other energy storage  systems for example the highest energy density   of any chemical fuel is hydrogens which is  141.8 megajoules per kilogram or roughly 40   000 Watt hours per kilogram for comparison Tesla's  best lithium ion batteries to date hold less than   300 watt hours per kilogram but atomic energy is  at another level a pure sample of a nuclear fuel   like plutonium-238 has a specific energy density  of wait for it 630 million Watt hours per kilogram   that's almost 16 000 times higher than the energy  density of hydrogen and over 2 million times   higher than the Tesla 4680 cell pretty crazy right  that's why nuclear energy is mysterious and scary   as it is gets so much attention you know what else  is mysterious and scary staying private and secure   while using Wi-Fi and browsing the web and we're  a sponsor this week comes in nordvpn is a premier   VPN provider that helps keep you safe online a  service I've had since 2017. let's talk about   what happens when you visit a site on your laptop  your sensitive info could potentially be visible   to anyone with the right equipment that's why you  should always look for https connections but just   one bad website can ruin your day or your life  with nordvpn all your data is encrypted and sent   to one of nord's 5500 plus servers in 59 countries  not only is your information totally encrypted but   so is your location and you barely even notice  all the security happening thanks to nord's   best-in-class VPN speeds things that even scarier  when you use public Wi-Fi networks at coffee shops   or airports a bad actor can pretend to be a free  public Wi-Fi network and monitor all your traffic   to steal your passwords and sensitive info so  with nordvpn you'd still be protected one more   VPN account protects up to six devices on most  platforms like Windows Android iOS and Mac it's   my iPhone iPad and laptop are always secure when  I'm on travel start browsing safer online by going   to nordvpn.com 2-bit to get a two-year plan plus  four additional months with a huge discount huge   thanks to Nord and you for supporting the show  put another way that's the equivalent of over 7   000 Tesla Model 3 Performance battery packs  in one single kilogram or 2.2 pounds of   plutonium-238 now granted that is for a pure  sample of plutonium-238 and that's not easy   to come by but even if we had a sample people as  little as one percent plutonium that's still 100   times more energy dense than hydrogen so energy  density is the nuclear battery's most promising   feature it's why nuclear batteries are touted as  never ending and able to outlive the devices they   power the question is can we get all that energy  out and more importantly how fast to answer that   let's look at how radioactivity works the energy  from nuclear batteries comes from radioactivity   which is caused by a process called nuclear  Decay nuclear Decay takes place when an atom   has a sub-optimal neutron to proton ratio in its  nucleus making it unstable this makes the nucleus   break apart and releases alpha or beta particles  or gamma photons leading to Alpha Beta And Decay   respectively Alpha and beta particles emitted  during Decay reactions carry kinetic energy   this energy with nuclear batteries transform into  electricity they do this in different ways which   lead to different types of nuclear batteries first  we have thermal conversion nuclear batteries AKA   radioisotope thermal generators or rtgs these  turn radioactive heat in into electricity using   a thermocouple rtgs have powered anything from  nuclear pacemakers to many of NASA's deep space   missions like the Voyager spacecrafts and even  the Curiosity Mars Rover next we have radioisotope   photovoltaic generators which transforms ionizing  radiation into light and then uses a standard PV   cell to transform that light into electricity we  can actually make these at home by sandwiching   tritium tubes in between a pair of PV cells which  is pretty cool and maybe I'll mess around with   that I don't know finally we have the beta voltage  nuclear battery this is where the nuclear waste   Diamond battery comes in so we'll look at them  in a bit more detail a beta voltaic battery works   similarly to PV cells only instead of light it  absorbs beta particles from radioactive beta Decay   you know the one I was talking about a minute ago  poor Rapport from the radio Corporation of America   invented the beta voltaic battery back in 1953  the technology never really took off but a half   century later it made a comeback a company called  City Labs founded in 2005 have been manufacturing   cell silicon-based tritium beta voltaic cells from  microelectronic applications since 2008 and has   been selling them commercially since 2012. I spoke  with the co-founder and CEO of City Labs about the   company's track record and what they're doing down  in Florida I'll let him explain how tritium beta   voltaics work as far as how it works think of a  solar cell if you put a solar saw and you have   light coming down you create electricity that  way what we've taken is instead of having the   light out here we use tritium we embed it inside  with the beta voltaic cell and the beta will take   radiation hits the junction and it can uncap this  for you so you can see so you have a beta voltage   junction which is black right there and instead of  receiving light we have we put the tritium right   on the surface and the beta radiation comes in  and it produces electrical current that way City   Labs is a key player in the nuclear batteries  comeback in fact they're the only company with   a general license to sell beta voltaic batteries  to anyone but they're not the real reason why this   technology made the news recently we owe that  to a team of researchers from the University of   Bristol who invented a totally new way to build  beta voltaic batteries and what they did changed   the game they replaced silicon carbide with shiny  synthetic diamonds using a process called chemical   vapor deposition they force carbon from gaseous  methane to crystallize into nano-sized diamonds   a couple of billionths of a meter wide but  that's not the end of it they also chose an   equally unconventional radioactive Source carbon  14. this Choice has several big advantages one is   that diamonds are made of carbon so using carbon  14 lets them integrate the radioactive Source   into the semiconductors structure itself making it  easier to harness the power coming from the carbon   14. the second key benefit is that carbon 14 is  a byproduct of most nuclear reactors although   not a particularly dangerous type of nuclear waste  radioactive carbon blocks make up the bulk of all   radioactive waste by volume so we're using that  carbon 14 would help us manage nuclear waste that   would otherwise end up buried for the next couple  thousand years draining taxpayer dollars by the   billions what really set the nuclear waste Diamond  battery Ablaze was when its inventors professors   Tom Scott and Neil Fox who founded a spin-off  company called Arc and light to commercialize   their design were quoted saying that these  batteries would eventually run our smartphones   for decades without needing to recharge Ever  Could you even imagine no more messy power cables   exploding batteries or worrying about your laptop  going dead you can imagine the internet when that   news broke it would be heaven on Earth especially  for Millennials nevertheless arcan light hasn't   been able to make good on their promise and  their best batteries to date barely produce   a couple of microwatts but we'll get back to that  later on in the video arcan light isn't the only   company building nuclear waste Diamond batteries  another company called NDB has been making even   more noise since its foundation in 2019 but  they're using a different kind of radiation   if you've heard about nuclear Diamond batteries  odds are you've heard about NDB their Tech is   similar to arcan lights in the sense that they're  also using Diamond assay semiconductor but that's   for the similarities end the company is making  what they call Decay voltaic batteries which   is a way to say that they can tailor their host  Diamond semiconductor to use different types of   radiation and radioactive sources including both  Alpha and beta emitters alpha decay produces more   energy than beta Decay and it's also three times  easier to capture in a semiconductor than beta   radiation so NDB is betting that this technology  will create more powerful nuclear batteries with   their new technology NDB claim games their designs  can work on a wide power output range that could   power not just laptops and phones but EVs and even  our homes these claims are bold to say the least   and it's no wonder NDB made headlines everywhere  I mean if what they say is true it will change the   world completely just imagine coming home from a  trip on your nuclear-powered EV and plug it into   the outlet not to charge it but to power Your  Home Instead This makes Tony Stark's chest Arc   Reactor seem like a disposable double A battery  talk about replacing fossil fuels we wouldn't   even need Renewables or utilities but as this  even possible or is it all just hype well let's   look at it from the engineering perspective so  engineering hats on you may have noticed that   by now all of the currently available nuclear  batteries provide awesome energy densities and   long battery life that can reach into the decades  that's awesome and there's no denying that but all   nuclear batteries have a major flaw which is they  have extremely low power density if you discharge   a battery at extremely low power than the power  within no matter how small is going to last a   very long time take a typical double A battery  which holds about 3.9 Watt hours of energy and   if we were to use it to power a small wrist walk  that consumes say one microwatt assuming no other   losses the battery would last Almost 450 years  one double A but for EVS we need batteries that   can pump out hundreds of Watts not microwatts  we need power density not just energy density   same goes for the grid most other really useful  applications so then the question is is there a   way with these technologies that we can increase  the power the answer is yes but there's a limit   the power density for a radioactive Source  say plutonium-238 which is an alpha emitter   with a half-life of 87.7 years assuming 100 pure  sample is 510 watts per kilogram for comparison   the highest specific power density for lithium ion  batteries caps around 1000 watts per gram which is   already twice as high but sadly there's no way we  can get even that 510 number out of plutonium-238   for several reasons the first is efficiency direct  Alpha voltaics with a diamond semiconductor can't   physically use more than 44.2 percent of  the total power additionally because of many   unavoidable losses the real efficiency is much  lower typically in the range of only about three   percent but just for the sake of argument suppose  NDP could magically extract a hundred percent of   the power those 510 watts would still only be  true for one kilogram of 100 pure plutonium-238   but that is not what NDB would use NDB plans to  Source its radioisotopes from spent nuclear fuel   rods these contain only 1.15 percent of plutonium  and out of which only two percent is plutonium-238   this brings our theoretical maximum power density  down to just 0.117 watts per kilogram roughly 120   microwatts per kilogram that's just a big bummer I  mean even at 200 microwatts per kilogram you need   11 tons of spent fuel to power a simple hair dryer  let alone an EV the second major limiting factor   is raw material availability this table shows  the total World supply of the Isotopes produced   in nuclear power plants that we would potentially  use to make nuclear Diamond batteries say we took   all the strong tm-90 in the world which is one  of the most abundant radioisotopes in nuclear   waste and use it to make our batteries the most  power we could produce would only be 3.5 megawatts   that means if we wanted to make batteries that  could pump out say 350 watts each we would only   be able to make 10 000 units with the entire  world supply of strontium 90. this alone ends   a discussion nuclear waste Diamond batteries are  definitely not going to take over the EV energy   storage Market not now or ever regardless of how  good NDB or any other company's claims make them   out to be they simply isn't enough raw materials  to cover the demand in terms of power and either   way the massive batteries would be way too great  for most applications also I don't know how Keen   you would be on having a bunch of nuclear waste  sitting around your house by the way adding a   capacitor on top like NDB proposes to do won't  really help either because once it's depleted   the nuclear battery will need to recharge it  and it again Powers at the level of micro watts   and will take years to recharge the capacitor  but is this it I mean is this the end of the   nuclear battery I don't think so while companies  like NDB may not have been straight when setting   expectations others like City Labs have it turns  out there are plenty of applications for low Power   Nuclear batteries we have a contract now with the  National Institutes of Health to make a tiny beta   will take the size of a couple grains of rice and  it's going to be put on this sleeveless pacemaker   that's inserted up the femoral artery and Into  the Heart there are latest pacemakers right now   that have regular conventional lithium batteries  but about 60 to 80 percent of it is a lithium   battery it's it's pretty big so a beta will take  and do is shrink down quite a bit and uh make the   the overall size a very very small probably  you know fraction of a cubic centimeter for   battery and pacemaker and and that it can last 20  years right now most of these pacemaker batteries   they're projected to last 10 years sometimes they  say 15 years but it depends on how much it's used   by the patient with the beta will take you a  straight steady supply of power so what about   shape and size for these batteries could they be  putting something like a neuralink implant for   example I'd like to just show these little props  this right here is our original beta will take   cells it's about 0.6 millimeters or 600 microns  thick this here is our current beta will take   semiconductor it's same function same ability  same efficiency but it's only about 15 microns   thick and we can make them quite thinner if you  look at a the size of a human hair the thickness   it's about 100 microns so this is way thinner so  we can cut this make them any size stack them up   to increase the power and potentially just put  it on a small little chip and just flip chip   bit onto a computer chip and make the chip  self-powered so we're looking at a world of   possibilities that range from nuclear pacemaker  to size of couple of grains of rice that can be   inserted directly into your heart to Tiny swarm  satellites to self-powered computer chips and   sensors that can fit on your fingertip and operate  for decades unattended but you might be thinking   you want me to put a radioactive battery inside  my heart wouldn't the radiation kill me that's   a very valid question and of course with any  radioactive there's always a risk a course with   tritium the risks are somewhat mitigated because  of the tritium betas or the electrons that are   coming out can be stopped with a thin sheet  of paper like I mentioned earlier it travels   about a micron into the material and that's it  so we can contain all the variation by just the   the packaging or even a thin sheet of paper or a  foil of course our beta will take devices are are   hermetically sealed and the you know we go above  and beyond to make sure that it's safe and we   are very regulated as far as the manufacturing of  these devices so nuclear batteries are perfectly   safe and they have plenty going for them without  powering our phones and cars perhaps NDB and arcan   light are on the brink of a breakthrough that  could change the world as we know it but what I   like most about my conversation with City Labs is  that their technology is available today this is   proven technology that already hit commercial  scale and it's perfectly safe and it's making   our lives better today this is so refreshing when  you consider all the new breakthrough Technologies   we've covered on this channel that are still  10 or 20 years away from hitting the market   so don't think phones and laptops and cars maybe  in the future that could be possible but imagine   the millions of opportunities and possibilities  if you can have lifetime batteries and little   microchips you could embed and cement for example  on Bridges to check for strain and stresses is and   report back forever if there's ever an issue or  sensors around the world to in videos building   with their Earth 2 digital twin system that  feeds unbelievable amounts of data at every   corner of the globe all with batteries that never  need to be monitored ever there's still tons of   potential and in a world of big data and digital  Twins and modeling and simulation for predicting   the weather and everything else these batteries  and these sensors that power them could go a long   long way but what do you think what was your take  from all of this were you surprised at the state   of nuclear batteries did you know City Labs is  actually making these batteries today I'd love   to know and I think this video that we have  on nuclear you'll also like is check out next   I'm Ricky YouTube DaVinci thank you so much  for watching we'll catch you guys next week

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 262,037

Keywords: two bit da vinci, nuclear batttery, nuclear batteries, nuclear waste battery diamond, batteries made from nuclear waste, nuclear waste diamond battery, nuclear waste diamond batteries, nuclear waste batteries, nuclear waste battery, nuclear energy, nuclear waste, city labs, ndb, ndb battery, arkenlight diamond battery, arkenlight nuclear diamond battery, nuclear diamond battery, nuclear diamond batteries, Epic Tech Runs Cars & Homes For 1000 Years Without Gas Or Charging?

Id: tfoX-YMkTAo

Length: 19min 5sec (1145 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 17 2022